


What Vivaldi Wrote

by beswathe



Category: Bully (Video Games)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 03:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17593820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beswathe/pseuds/beswathe
Summary: Snapshots of four seasons at Bullworth.





	What Vivaldi Wrote

**summer**

Now that Bullworth Academy harbours peace on earth and goodwill to all, Gord had expected to see the architect of its ceasefire—Jimmy Hopkins, unlikely diplomat—wandering campus more often. He’d possessed a penchant for truancy even before every faction turned on him, but Gord had put that down to the fact there was always _someone_ on his case, in one way or another.

A year’s work went in to resolving Jimmy’s image problem, marketing him for the masses until he’s just palatable enough to get by. And yet, now that he’s finally shirked the title of token reject, he seemingly wants little to do with his newfound popularity. When he does attend classes, he doesn’t hang around the school building for long afterwards; when he ventures into town, he goes alone.

He hasn’t been keeping Gord in the loop, anyway, so whenever Gord swings by the beach house, it’s not because he expects Jimmy will be there. Hopkins hasn’t been spotted by the sea for over a week, which is grounds for Gord to believe he won't be seeing Jimmy at all this afternoon, no matter how long he sits in the shade beneath the pier.

Which is just fine by him. He has reading to do.

Studying the law is a natural step from Gord’s usual field of research: the topic of social politics, and the art of adhering to all its unwritten rules. But conventional law—the kind written in books, to rig the game for their authors—is far simpler to understand than the psychology of other people. For starters, it’s objective. He can write an essay on trusts, or hedge funds. He couldn’t begin to explain what makes someone like, say, Jimmy Hopkins tick. Or what it would take to make Jimmy show up. What it would take to make Jimmy stick around.

These are not questions Gord is pondering, of course; they are clinical hypotheticals. They don’t so much as cross his mind, and when the long, pronounced body of a shadow begins creeping over Gord and the pages of his book, he isn’t hoping for a second that he’ll see Jimmy if he looks up.

“Hey,” comes Jimmy’s voice from Gord’s right.

It means nothing that Gord immediately places his book down in the sand.

“Hopkins! You’re alive.”

“Trust me,” Jimmy says, “it’s gonna take more than this town to kill me. What’re you reading?”

“Don’t pretend you’re remotely interested.” Affronted by the sun peeking over Jimmy’s shoulder, Gord shields his eyes with a hand. “Nobody’s heard from you since summer began, but here you are, showing up out of the blue… You must want something.”

“I don’t always _want_ something.” Then Jimmy reconsiders. “Well. Maybe I do when it’s _you_.”

While he’d usually engage in hollow flirtation with zeal, Gord refuses to give Jimmy the satisfaction. Jimmy isn’t his only beau, and Gord’s been on a date or two since Jimmy went AWOL, but that doesn’t mean Jimmy is allowed to ignore _him_.

It’s frustrating; he hadn’t thought much about Hopkins in particular until Hopkins’ attention had been denied to him. Gord has an inkling, albeit an unhappy one, that this is a documented principle. Something about hearts and absences.

“Hilarious. Now, if you don’t mind…” Gord pats his book. “I’d like to finish this chapter on _voir dire_.”

“Sounds real high-octane, Gord.” Jimmy shoves his hands into his pockets, opens his mouth to continue—then doesn’t. He pauses instead before he adds, “Man. I forgot how weird that is to say.”

Gord frowns, looking up once more. “My name?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy says, and it’s his turn to break eye contact. “It’s like, you know… gourds. The fruits, or…”

Against his better judgement, Gord smiles. It’s slight, and not kind in the least, but Jimmy has a unique ability to say the most absurd things. To genuinely amuse him when he’s used to exchanging fake laughter for approval.

“Perhaps it’s strange to you because that isn’t _really_ my name, Jimmy.”

“What?” Jimmy whips his head around. “Wait, what’s your name, then?”

“Gordon, obviously,” Gord says, with a prim sniff. “Gordon Birchard Vendome.”

“Birchard,” Jimmy echoes, sounding distinctly unimpressed. Gord scowls at that.

“Correct. It's what the B stands for in Rutherford B. Hayes. A distant relative of ours… we assume.”

For a moment, Jimmy remains distinctly unimpressed, from the slouch in his shoulders to the vacant stare on his face. But then his mouth quivers, curling at one edge, and he has the nerve to _laugh_.

“Sometimes I forget you’re from a whole other planet, but then you say crap like that.”

Gord huffs, drawing in his legs to cross them instead. He rests his hands neatly on his knees, shutting his eyes as they readjust to looking away from the sun. There’s a distinctly sandy crunch, and when he opens them again, Jimmy has inelegantly deposited himself in front of Gord, propped up by outstretched arms.

Jimmy receives a half-hearted glare for his troubles. And then, “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

It’s intended as a flippant comment—but Jimmy takes it entirely too seriously, given the agitated frown that graces his face.

“What? No. You think I’ve been avoiding you?”

“Not just me, I suppose,” Gord says. He prefers not to stray from his comfort zone when it comes to social politics and all those unwritten rules; saying anything else would veer dangerously close to uncharted territory. “You’ve been avoiding Bullworth. Bored now the challenge is gone?”

“That’s not it,” Jimmy says. “I’m on to a good thing. A real good thing.”

“You are,” Gord agrees, airily waving a hand. “Yet you’re not taking advantage of it because…?”

“Because how can I be sure it’s gonna last?” Jimmy demands. “You know what people at Bullworth are like. They’re your friends one second, but it don’t take much to change their minds. Nobody uses their goddamn brains or talks things out—they just attack at the first sign of trouble. You included, by the way.”

“I,” Gord begins, fully prepared to match Jimmy’s indignation with outrage of his own.

But as someone well-acquainted with hypocrisy, accustomed to wielding it like a weapon, he knows he’d be lying if he claimed he hasn’t employed exactly the same tactics as his peers. Sometimes for Jimmy’s benefit… mostly at his expense. Gord lets his objections fall away like grains into the sand.

“You’re talking to me now, though,” he points out instead. “I must be the first person you’ve willingly approached for the better part of two weeks.”

Jimmy laughs again, this time bitterly. “You’re the best of the worst. I wanted to hang.”

Oh. So maybe Jimmy _was_ looking for him after all.

Gord can’t help himself; if there’s a hint he can extract any flattery whatsoever from others, he’ll always try to wring out every last drop. He tilts his head, attempting to sound indifferent.

“With me, Hopkins? You must have a reason.”

“Because you’re not gonna,” Jimmy says, only to cut himself abruptly short. He eyes Gord almost suspiciously; it’s disquieting to exist on the receiving end. “I figured you wouldn’t go all crazy on me. But who knows if you’re gonna prove me wrong.”

 _Like Gary Smith did_ , Gord thinks. Gary had always drawn amusement from Jimmy’s faith in their friendship, however parasitic it had been. He’d boasted to Derby about it, back when turf warfare was all the rage; he’d paraded Jimmy’s loneliness as his Kryptonite.

Gord hadn’t believed it at the time, and he hadn’t really believed it after, the idea that a boy like Jimmy could ever be affected by something so human. So inadequate for a walking time-bomb. But as he watches Jimmy in the present, still processing the wariness in Jimmy’s tone, he thinks that’s the one thing Gary Smith might’ve been right about.

Yet Jimmy is asking him for something Gord can’t provide. He knows himself too well; he’s only loyal until something newer and shinier comes along, and he rarely has a problem with selling someone else’s stability for entertainment.

He sees no value in throwing Jimmy under the bus, though. There’s no bus to throw him under, anyway, but even if there was—if presented with the opportunity to crush Jimmy’s reputation again—he doesn’t really think he’d enjoy it.

Been there. Done that. That’s all.

“I have no intention of making you miserable,” Gord says. He rolls his eyes, as if to prove his point. “Too much effort, and there wouldn’t be anything in it for me.”

He thinks he sees Jimmy smile again; it’s so quick that he can’t determine the feeling behind it. But there’s no mistaking the way Jimmy’s tense posture decompresses, relaxed shoulders rolling back.

“You’re such a dick,” Jimmy says. “You’re lucky that’s why I like you.”

“Me? You’re the one interrupting a private study session.”

After sparing a glance to the abandoned book, Jimmy reaches out, taking one of Gord’s hands. When he meets no resistance (Gord is nothing if not perpetually curious), Jimmy lifts it to his mouth, kissing the back of it.

He thinks he’s funny, of course. But Gord’s chest tightens all the same.

“All right, _Gordon_. Tell me what the hell _voir dire_ means.”

**autumn**

If Gord had to confess to a personal shortcoming (of which he regrettably has a few) he would likely single out his tendency to scare easily. Of course, it takes more than ghost stories or things that go bump in the night to disturb him; he’s prepared to argue that his fears are all perfectly justified. He just so happens to have a great deal of them.

A hole in his favourite sweater. Stringent tax reform. Clowns. Cowering at the thought of witches or werewolves is a waste of time and energy when far more horrifying things exist in the earthly realm.

So when Jimmy had shown up at his door for Hallowe’en—kitted out like some sort of murderous scarecrow with a sack-cloth over his head—Gord hadn’t been startled. Nor had he recoiled from Jimmy’s suggestion that they skip the festivities at Bullworth to go somewhere more private, and infinitely more _spooky_. He’d suspected Jimmy might take him to a party, or even the abandoned pool.

Bullworth’s cemetery hadn’t quite been what he’d had in mind.

“I don’t suppose you come here often,” Gord says, as he primly accepts Jimmy’s hand to boost him over the crumbling churchyard wall. The Vendomes are only religious when they compose their yearly Christmas letter, so Gord is hardly a regular member of the congregation himself.

“During the day? No way.” Once Gord is over the wall, Jimmy turns to surveying the grounds. “But it’s a pretty neat place to visit at night.”

Gord must respectfully disagree, and not just because of the oppressive darkness. There’s at least a modicum of moonlight to guide the way through the scattered tombstones—but the grounds are otherwise unkempt, and Gord could swear there’s a candle burning within the looming church building, if the dim orange glow in one of its windows means anything.

“Won’t some sort of… groundskeeper chase us off?” Gord asks, patting down his long cape. He’d only dressed as a vampire this year to show off a _delightful_ waistcoat from Aquaberry’s fall line.

“I haven’t seen one yet. Just mourners and underage drinkers.” As an afterthought, Jimmy adds, “Sometimes I hear the preacher giving apocalyptic sermons, I guess.”

Much as Gord desperately wants to ask for elaboration on Jimmy’s last point, he doesn’t get the chance. Jimmy is already moving, making a beeline between two rows of crooked tombstones, and Gord has no choice but to follow.

Not because he’s _scared_ , mind. He merely doesn’t want to get lost.

“This is a rather unconventional spot for a date,” Gord grumbles.

His grievance is aired beneath his breath, half-obscured when he crunches a mass of leaves underfoot. That’s possibly for the best, because he ends up hoping Jimmy didn’t really hear him.

For they do not _date_. They simply happen to be in the same place at the same time, occasionally. Sometimes they turn up together, or share travel arrangements (such as tonight, when they cycled here, one following the other)… but that isn’t _dating_.

He’s relieved when Jimmy calls over his shoulder, “You say something?”

“No,” Gord says, quickly. “But answer me this. Why did you bring me here, exactly?”

“Cause I didn’t want to hang around for Bullworth’s student body unleashing their inner sociopaths, and I figured you wouldn’t either.” Jimmy turns so he can shoot Gord a fiendish grin, walking backwards for a few steps. “Besides, this has gotta be the best place to make out on Hallowe’en.”

“You really are a cad,” Gord says, reveling in it.

Jimmy stops, and Gord reaches him, surprised to find Jimmy’s features less delineated the closer they get, ill-defined by the moon’s diluted glow. He can make out Jimmy’s jaw, though, and that’s all he needs, placing a hand under Jimmy’s chin to roughly tip his head the way Gord wants it. When Gord kisses him Jimmy reciprocates, immediate and open. Gord tastes that revolting cola drink Jimmy likes, but the aftertaste is of chalky cornstarch, which Gord used for the fake blood painted into a drip from the corner of his own mouth.

Then Gord pulls away, and darts past Jimmy entirely. He has no real idea where he’s going, other than the vague understanding he’s venturing further into the final resting place of wretches who failed to die somewhere slightly more glamorous than Bullworth.

Jimmy is fast on his feet, but Gord is faster. Still, it does him no good when he moves on a whim into what appears to be a dead end, and he finds himself faced with either a wall he won’t be able to mount, or an above-ground tomb. Given mere seconds to think, he gravitates towards the latter.

He scrambles onto it and perches there, stretching his legs out over the edge while Jimmy finally rounds the corner.

Jimmy falters. “There’s a dead guy in there.”

“If only the scarecrow had a brain! Need I remind you that we’re in a cemetery?”

“You’re _sitting_ on it, Gord.”

“Spare me,” Gord says, with an aristocratic scoff. “Nobody builds crypts like these nowadays—it’s so tacky. Whoever resided here has been little more than worm feed for a century.”

With a _tch_ , Jimmy stalks towards him. “I bet you wouldn’t be so casual about it if you were the one in that thing.”

“And one day I will be,” Gord says, spreading his arms. The cape moves too, heavy and dramatic as it sweeps across the stone lid; in moments like these, Gord almost understands the theatre kids. “But for now, I’ve got a lot of living to do, baby.”

“Huh,” Jimmy says. “I don’t think you’ve ever been this self-aware.”

Jimmy is near enough now that Gord has to look down slightly. He doesn’t say anything, opting to enjoy the view for a moment, until Jimmy places a hand either side of him, so close that Gord could wrap his legs around Jimmy’s waist with not much effort at all.

So that’s precisely what he does. He encircles him loosely, playfully, crossing his ankles over the back of Jimmy’s thighs while grinning like the cat who got the cream.

“It’s a shame I can’t say the same about you,” Gord says. “Only fools approach strangers in a graveyard after dark, you know. There are vampires out there.”

“So I’ve heard,” Jimmy says. He grins back, though his carries an edge of malice. “But they’re not half as scary as clowns, am I right?”

Gord freezes, suspending the Bela Lugosi act, too. “How… did you know about that?”

He doesn’t get an answer. Instead, Jimmy straightens up and kisses him again, this time slower, with purpose.

The howl of something distant echoes through the valley, and Gord briefly tries to recall if Jimmy mentioned wolves roaming these parts—but he cups Jimmy’s face and kisses him back, until very soon, he’s too distracted to think about anything at all.

**winter**

Though the Vendomes have a fabulous insurance plan—one that guarantees access to doctors of a frightfully decent sort, sympathetic and prepared to prescribe just about anything—there’s no cure on the market for the common cold, it seems. Gord knows this because he went in demanding such a drug on Monday, yet it’s Wednesday now and the analgesics dished out by his physician have done nothing to alleviate his symptoms.

Across town, Gord’s friends are partaking in one of the Glass Jaw Club’s thirty annual boxing tournaments, and it’ll be just his luck if the one night he can’t attend turns out to be the best. Painfully aware of what he’s missing (pained in general, his throat sore and his head swimming) he has to settle for the next best thing: curling up on the couch by the fire, swaddled in a practical yet expensive cashmere blanket.

With Jimmy Hopkins watching him from the opposite chair.

Hopkins finds the whole thing funny. It’s little wonder that he’s able to laugh about it, because Hopkins doesn’t seem to get sick at all, not ever.

And he only turned up because there’s a certain thrill to wandering around Harrington House when its regular occupants have vacated the premises. Or so he says. When Jimmy presented Gord with a packet of lozenges upon entering, Gord ceased to care about Jimmy's motivations.

“If you engage in any sort of vandalism,” Gord says, as he unwraps the first lozenge, “I may be too incapacitated to stop you—but I shan’t forget, nor shall I forgive.”

“Relax, Gord,” Jimmy bids. He sits oddly, on the edge of his seat, legs bent beneath him. It makes far more sense when he holds his hands to the fire and says, “I just want the heat. It’s cold out there.”

“I can imagine,” Gord says. It’s difficult to sound glum about the pleasant crackle of dancing flames, but having a reason to feel sorry for himself is the only good thing to come out of this sickness—so he does his darndest to project misery as he adds, “I suppose there _is_ something quite pleasant about a fireside in the bleak midwinter.”

“You pay attention in English now?” Jimmy looks at him. “It’s snowing, too.”

Gord’s thoughts, usually fast-flowing like slick champagne, are currently a feverish broth—but he’s got enough of his wits about him to question Jimmy’s assertion. The weather report had said nothing about snow, which Gord naturally detests. He lacks the complexion for it.

“You don’t look like a man who just braved the frosty elements to me,” Gord says. “Your clothes aren’t wet.”

“I didn’t say it was heavy,” Jimmy replies. He rubs his hands together, then holds them out flat. “Not yet, but it looks like it’s getting there. I sure hope it does, anyway.”

Grimacing, Gord pulls the blanket tighter around him. He draws his legs in closer, too, chin resting atop his knees.

“You’re a sadist, Hopkins. Nobody wishes for snow for the love of it.”

“Who said anything about loving it? I’m thinking of your comedy sidekicks getting snowed in after their stupid contest.”

Gord fails to suppress a smile, and it turns out to be too small to justify the bother it causes his face. His nose objects to being even slightly crinkled; his throat will not allow his mouth to ignore its suffering. He finally pushes the lozenge past his lips, the impropriety of speaking with his mouth full be damned.

But it’s what Jimmy didn’t say that amuses him. The boy’s understanding of hierarchies, and where Gord falls on them.

“They’re hardly my _sidekicks_ , Jimmy.”

“Whatever they are, you can’t tell me that wouldn’t be worth a little bad weather.”

“I can’t condemn my chums to hypothermia,” Gord says, with admittedly inadequate conviction. Still, he’s quick to change the topic. “Besides, it occurs to me your wish might invite the laws of unintended consequences.”

Jimmy spares Gord a glance. “What’re you talking about?”

“If they’re snowed in, it stands to reason that Bullworth Academy would be, too. Do you really want to spend any more time than necessary cooped up in your dormitory with the…” Gord pauses to sniff, and not simply due to blocked sinuses. “… _regular_ students?”

In a glorious rejection of the natural order, Jimmy looks almost thoughtful. He resumes watching the fire—which is more like it; Neanderthals are best known for their love of the stuff—and doesn’t look back, even when he speaks.

“I’m not there, though, am I?”

Gord, in no mood for metaphysical philosophy tonight, half-heartedly arches a brow.

“Dumbass,” Jimmy says, when he notices it. “I’m _here_. If I got snowed in anywhere…”

“Oh,” Gord says. “That’s true. At least until the prefects turn up with a shovel and something to prove.”

Jimmy apparently has nothing more to say to that, far more interested in defrosting himself on the House’s dime. Gord, feeling either unexpectedly charitable or too weak to protest, decides to allow it—not least of all because he understands the allure of the hearth. The lounge is warm, the air just as much a blanket as the physical one around Gord’s body, and if he closes his eyes, he could picture himself in the family log cabin near Chamonix, the most French part with all the skiing.

So he closes them. Surrendering to discomfort is easier than fighting it, and he can almost mistake his mild delirium for drowsiness when his head touches the armrest.

Yet Jimmy objects, it seems, to being deprived of a babysitter; something depresses the other end of the sofa, and when Gord cracks open an eye, he sees Jimmy sitting there.

“Move,” Gord says, his voice just as febrile as the kick he delivers to Jimmy’s thigh. It’s more like a nudge, applied by a woolly-socked foot. “Better yet, go away.”

“And we were getting along so well,” Jimmy says. With one leg on the seat and the other dangling off it, he has enough of his body turned to Gord to stare down at him. “What’s the problem?”

“What do you think?” Gord asks, narrowing his eyes over his blanket. “I’m infectious.”

“Didn’t I tell you already? I don’t get sick.”

“You haven't been sick _so far,_ you mean. Your luck will inevitably run out.”

“Then let me worry about it,” Jimmy says.

But he must have no intention of worrying at all, because his next act is to extend an arm, reaching over to place a hand on Gord’s forehead. His touch is gentle, and his brow is furrowed with something that could be labelled as concern.

It’s all rather humiliating. Gord’s hair is likely damp with sweat, and he’s been too indisposed to follow his moisturising routine. Yet Jimmy didn’t recoil immediately, as one might expect.

So Gord blinks at him, most certainly not turning red. If there’s colour in Gord’s cheeks, it’s down to the contagion.

“What are you doing?” Gord asks, starting to feel like a specimen under observation.

“Feeling your forehead,” is Jimmy’s redundant answer, though he clarifies with, “for your temperature. You know, you’re really warm.”

“That’ll be the fireplace.”

“No. It’s not that, it’s…”

“Then it’s my ill health, which threatens to afflict you the longer you insist on touching me.”

Jimmy withdraws his hand, only to remain inexplicably seated. Gord looks at him questioningly until he tires of the effort, settling back into the optimum position for napping.

Until he’s rudely interrupted, of course. First come two strong hands snaking around his ankles; next, he’s being dragged by them, yelping with surprise as his head flops onto the sofa pillows and his legs end up stretched across Jimmy’s lap. He winds up swallowing what remains of the lozenge.

“What do you think you’re doing, Hopkins?” Gord demands. He pushes himself upright by the elbows, but his protest is short-lived. His body wants to crumple again, so down he goes like a ragdoll.

“Nothing,” Jimmy says, with the most alarming grin. “Just thought you’d be more comfortable like this.”

He wasn’t wrong about that, Gord muses. He stretches out across the sofa, and when he arches his back, his limbs are freed of an indefinable pressure. Sinking back into his cocoon feels slightly less suffocating, so the noise he makes now is a sigh of relief.

When he shuts his eyes this time, it’s to spite Jimmy. He doesn’t want to see the smug exhibition on Jimmy’s face.

“You’ll regret this. You’re going to catch what I have.”

 “We’ll see.” Jimmy sounds unconvinced.

“And what if you really do get snowed in?”

“I don’t care,” Jimmy says, and he places a hand on Gord’s knee.

The other comes to rest on Gord’s stomach, thankfully unexposed by his pyjama top. Gord’s stomach muscles seize, but Jimmy goes no further. His palm simply stays there, rising and falling with Gord’s every breath, and he feels colder than Gord’s skin, even through the fabric. Perhaps he really is running a fever.

At least for the time being, Gord decides to tolerate it. Interspersed with that pleasant crackling of dancing flames is Jimmy’s own breathing, and there's something comforting about such a marriage of sounds.

Safe in the knowledge that Jimmy has been _warned_ —so it’s really his _own_ fault if he comes down with something—Gord permits himself to doze off, pacified, into the snowdrift.

**spring**

In one of the more mysterious tides of fashion, people around Bullworth have begun describing themselves as a _noun person_ —particularly when it comes to the polarity of cats and dogs. Cat people fancy themselves as mysterious and aloof; dog people are outdoorsy, albeit slightly dim. As for Gord himself, he would never purport to be either. Preferring one animal over another is not a brick in the construction of his character.

Rather, he is a _noun person_ only when the noun in question provides something of benefit—so today, as he strolls through the Old Vale park with Chad Morris’ hound, he supposes he’s currently on the side of canines. Dogs are, after all, rather useful tools in the art of attracting babes. Whenever Gord walks Chester, women similarly wandering the park always stop to fuss over the slobbering little hell-beast.

They are, of course, less enthused by Jimmy Hopkins, the _other_ slobbering hell-beast in Gord’s sphere. But telling Jimmy to stay behind would’ve been a futile exercise, because rejection only makes him want to tag along even more.

So Gord despairs in silence as he watches his cynical attempt to exploit Chad’s need for a dog-walker melt into a genuine favour before his very eyes. There won’t be many ladies today, not with Jimmy all but glued to his side and practically moving in step with him.

“You needn’t walk so close, you know,” Gord mutters, tugging on the leash to deter Chester from the squirrel he's spotted. “This path is wide enough for us both.”

“I can see that, but I don’t want people getting ideas.”

Gord turns his head. “Ideas?”

“Yeah. I know what kinda philandering you had in mind, but you’re with _me_.” Jimmy’s lazy shrug doesn’t quite fit his roguish grin. “I’m the only one who gets to hit on you today, all right?”

Huh. If scaring off the ladies is precisely what Jimmy hoped to achieve by coming here, Gord feels miraculously less despondent.

He wonders why that is.

“How selfish of you, Jimmy,” Gord says, turning his attention back to the trail stretching ahead of them. “Hoarding your treasures, thinking only of yourself… I’m almost impressed. You may become one of us after all.”

Jimmy grunts. “I’d rather make out with the mutt.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Gord replies with a grimace. “Chester has a habit of drooling on the unsuspecting.”

“But hey,” Jimmy says. He gently taps the back of his hand to Gord’s elbow, and if Gord didn’t know any better, he’d call the gesture _fond_. “You think you’re treasure, now?”

“I’m hardly one of the kitsch ornaments you keep in your dormitory.”

Gord expects some kind of insult in return, of course; that’s simply how things operate between he and Jimmy Hopkins. The boy’s bark is just as bad as his bite, but that’s half the fun of it. Never being able to predict which one he’ll get is thrilling—and on top of that, Jimmy will sometimes surprise them both by doing something genuinely, bewilderingly sweet.

Those occasions have, secretly, become Gord’s favourites, but he never goes into this expecting them. He’s certainly not expecting it now, when Jimmy closes what little space remains between them by seizing Gord’s hand. Clumsily at first, and then with corrective determination, threading their fingers easily together.

Jimmy’s hands are cruel and callous, as Gord well knows. It makes him all the more giddy that one of them is holding his own.

Yet Gord, effortlessly suave and ready for anything, is not thrown; he overrides any temptation to stop dead in his tracks. He even bites his tongue when he feels a frustrated urge to snap at the dog for tugging on its lead as it veers to one side, toward where the squirrel happens to be.

“And what do you call this?” Gord murmurs, amused, loud enough for only Jimmy to hear. “Staking your claim?”

He angles his head to watch Chester, only because it presents the best opportunity he has for hiding a burgeoning smile.

“Do I even have to bother?” Jimmy asks. “Cause from where I’m standing, it sure looks like I’ve already won.”

The weather today is pleasant enough, with a cloudless blue sky and a dash of sunlight. But Gord wouldn’t describe the day as a warm one by any means, so when his face suddenly grows hot, Jimmy must be the cause.

How unfortunate.

“Watch it,” Gord says. “You sound like you’re about to ask me to go steady.”

Though his tone is jaunty, the warning is genuine. He has yet to try monogamy on for size, but he has his reasons. Damn good ones. He’s hardly the poster-boy for restraint, yes… but all his friends are the products of strategic homes, where marriage serves best as a means to an end, rather than a union of love. The idea of committing to one person, and having that person remain committed back, is naïve. It’s foolish.

It’s frightening.

And even now, as they walk together with Chester out in front of them, Gord sees the filthy looks on the faces of fellow park-goers. Adults, all of them, directing open disapproval at the spectacle of teenage boys holding hands in public, as though it’s so ghastly they’ll simply have to retire to their fainting-couches.

For all the problems commitment brings by itself, commitment to Jimmy would bring _more_. And that’s leaving aside Jimmy’s own propensity for fooling around with anyone who asks.

If Jimmy has noticed the negative attention, he doesn’t seem to care. But then, that’s his specialty; he invites controversy without shame, entirely unapologetic about who he is and what he does. Gord could never be so brazen, belonging as he does to a world where one’s reputation means more than their reality.

He rejects what Jimmy stands for. He wishes he could stand for the same things.

“Maybe that’s exactly what I’m asking,” Jimmy says.

Gord finally loses the will to keep moving. He stops, weighing Jimmy up with wide eyes. His grip on Chester’s leash tightens, but he’s barely paying attention to whatever’s caught the hound’s eye now.

Instead, he takes in the breeze carding through his hair, the easterly wind sailing past him to play with the birches and their greening leaves. Jimmy’s grip on him is firm, but not harsh, and expectation is plain on his face. Jimmy rather resembles Chester, actually; he has the same dour mouth and a similar snub nose. A nose Gord likes to kiss, if only because it doesn’t amuse Jimmy in the slightest.

For that matter, when was the last time Gord kissed anyone else? He hasn't for quite some time; it seems he directs all that energy to Jimmy, these days, if only because it's simpler. He knows Jimmy well enough for everything to fall into place, and it might all have been an accidental exercise in deferred gratification... but that is, stunningly, all right. It's okay.

Gord is not a dog person, yet standing here now, he thinks he can understand the appeal of walking one just for the joy of it—if there’s someone by his side worth walking with.

“Ask me, then,” Gord says, voice barely rising above the rustling overhead, or Chester’s skittering claws.

Something flashes across Jimmy’s face, and Gord wants to call it hesitation. Perhaps this is some kind of joke gone awry. Perhaps Jimmy hadn’t anticipated getting this far.

“Gordon Birchard Vendome,” Jimmy says, ultimately. He sounds so terribly solemn that it can't be taken seriously; the mischievous glint in his eye gives the game away. But his grasp on Gord’s hand remains earnest, and so pleasantly warm. “D’you wanna date for real?”

Gord isn’t sure. But even if it will end—even if it will hurt—it’s got to be worth a try.

Still, he’s never made things easy for Jimmy before and he’s not about to start now. He begins walking again, forcing Jimmy to catch up, and directs a smug smile to the open path ahead of them.

“I’ll consider it,” he says, simply.

Jimmy emits some sort of strangled splutter, but whatever he intended to say after goes unrealised when Gord squeezes his hand. Gently, if distinctly teasing. He will make his promises with words later, when he figures out the _terms_ he wishes to set and how he’s going to break it to everyone that Bullworth’s most eligible bachelor (he, not Jimmy) is off the market.

For now he broadcasts it effortlessly, just by staying here, on the cusp of their second summer together. They’re only slightly older, barely wiser, but that’s more than Gord can say for half their peers.

They fall into step again.

They walk on.


End file.
